Nothing quite complements the savory flavor of meat as well as the tang of smoke. Smoking meat is a low and slow cooking method that gives delicious flavor to any type of meat or other foods like cheese. With the right equipment and a little basic knowledge, it’s very easy to get started smoking meat. In this article, we’ll take a look at everything you need to get started as a master smoker.
Smoking Techniques
There are two main meat smoking techniques, a hot smoke and a cold smoke. They yield very different products. A hot smoke cooks the meat, while a cold smoke leaves the meat raw but smoke flavored.
Salmon is the perfect example. Lox is cold-smoked, while smoked salmon is hot-smoked. Both are salted and prepared the same way at essentially every step except the smoking process, and both are ready to eat. Most meats are hot-smoked and can then be sold as ready-to-eat products like sliced deli ham. It’s possible to cold smoke any kind of meat, but for food safety, all meat except fresh fish should be cooked before eating.
Smoking meat takes time. The longer you smoke the meat the stronger the flavor, and the total amount of time until fully cooked depends on the amount of meat and the temperature of the environment.
热熏是一种低而慢的烹饪方法。The cooking environment should never get above250 degrees Fand can be smoked as low as 180 degrees. Even small quantities of meat, like sausages, take at least an hour, and smoking can easily take all day. The slower you go, the juicier the final product.
Choosing The Wood
The type of wood that’s burning alters the flavor of the smoke. While any burning wood will bring a smoky flavor to the meat, there are lots of nuances. Depending on the wood available in your region, the best smoking woods are generally not the ones you use to build a fire or light a grill. You can buy bags of wood chips in other varieties specifically for smoking. These are available at any garden or hunting supply store.
烟熏木材可以大致分为两类:淡、甜口味和重口味。清淡的木材包括苹果,赤杨,枫树,樱桃和其他果树木材。由于果园每年冬天都必须修剪以促进水果产量,人们通常可以从当地果园购买果树木材。它需要腌制或干燥一段时间,然后才能用来吸烟。清淡、甜的木材适合熏制家禽、鱼、奶酪和蔬菜。
Strong-flavored woods most notably include hickory, oak, and mesquite. All three are best used for darker or stronger flavored meats, including wild game like venison. Hickory is often used with pork, creating the classic bacon and ham smoke flavor.
Mesquite is the strongest of all the smoke flavors and hot-burning, great for adding smoky flavor to something grilled hot and fast, rather than a true low-and-slow smoke.
There are a few types of wood that should not be used for smoking, since they have high resin content or other oils, and create sooty, unpleasant smoke. These include cypress, eucalyptus, elm, and conifers like pine, fir, spruce, and most redwoods with the exception of western red cedar.
Smoking salmon or other seafood on western red cedar planks is an ancient culinary practice of the indigenous Salish tribes on the Pacific coast.
无论你用的是哪种木材,确保它没有经过任何处理。Find more information abouttypes of wood here.
Quality Of Meat
一道菜的质量最重要的因素是肉的质量——它是如何饲养的,吃什么。虽然烟熏的味道很重,可以用来掩盖旧肉、冻焦肉或劣质肉的陈腐味道,但最好、最健康、最美味的菜肴都是用好肉做的。
肉的质量越高,味道越好,对身体和健康也越好。Fats from animals raised outdoors and on pasture havehigher levelsof antioxidants, omega-3s, andfat-soluble vitamins like A and E.任何种类的肉都可以熏。不管你的原料是什么,你采购的质量会提高你最终产品的质量。
Spices And Rubs
As with all cooking, the best flavor requires seasoning. Pat the surface of the meat dry before seasoning to help it form a crunchy exterior and hold moisture.
Rub withsaltand pepper at the very least, but other delicious spices for smoking include garlic, rosemary, thyme, paprika, chipotle, cumin, and sugar. You can also buy pre-made spice mixes. Consider the type of wood you are smoking with and whether a heavier or lighter spice compliments the flavor profile of the wood.
Brining And Tenderness In Hot Smoking
由于热烟熏是一种缓慢、干燥的烹饪技术,瘦肉有变硬和皮革的趋势。这里有一些增加柔嫩度的有效技巧。一种是在吸烟环境中加入一浅碟水或另一种液体,如果汁,称为湿式吸烟。
This creates steam as well as smoke and helps keep lean meat tender. However, it may prevent a crust from developing – the crunchy exterior characteristic of smoked meats often considered culinarily desirable.
另一种更经典的使熏肉变嫩的方法是用盐水腌渍。卤水是浸泡在盐溶液中——通常是盐和糖,为了调味。盐既能使肉变嫩,又能起到防腐剂的作用,因此它一直被认为是熏肉的完美搭配。火腿、烟熏鲑鱼和培根都是大家熟悉的、受人喜爱的食物,它们使用了盐和烟熏的组合。鲑鱼和培根都是脂肪含量高的,而火腿是瘦肉,所以盐可以使肉更嫩。
Home salting meat is an experiment in balance and personal taste. While recipes can help you get the ratio of salt to sugar to meat correct, I’ve found it nearly impossible to predict the saltiness of the final product without a test batch.
My advice is that the first time you brine or salt meat, don’t plan to use the salt and smoke to make your product shelf-stable. Err on the side of less salt and plan to refrigerate or freeze the product. Erring on the other side produces incredibly salty meat.
If you do over-salt, raw meat can be soaked and rinsed to remove salt, but once it’s cooked you’re out of luck.
Methods And Equipment
There are lots of different set-ups and types of equipment for smoking. When it comes down to it, they are all just different ways of burning wood near meat. Rather than using any wood, most smoking methods use wood chips – often hickory or apple, to give a particular flavor.
Campfire
The oldest and simplest method for smoking is over the coals of an open fire. While some people consider this grilling or roasting, rather than smoking, depending on the temperature of the coals, I personally think it has to be included.
It gives that smoky flavor to the meat, and with care to keep the coals even, it can be a low-and-slow cooking method. As the coals burn, add logs to the side of the fire pit away from the meat and push the new coals under the meat to keep the heat steady.
You can put wood chips in the coals for flavor, but they are likely to flame and cause the meat to burn or cook too fast. Dowse any flame-ups with water to prevent the meat from charring. Since it is unusual to build a campfire with hickory or applewood, these kinds of smoked meats have a less refined flavor to the smoke. Pine-smoked meat is especially strong tasting, but it is all part of the campfire charm.
The most basic equipment needed for this method is askeweror sharp stick. You can also use aspitor acooking grate. Spits and grates can be improvised and simple or can be bought specially with height-adjustment options which help control the speed and temperature of the cooking.
Barbeque Grills
一个很棒的后院熏肉方式是在烧烤架上。虽然烤架是为加热和快速烹饪而设计的(“烧烤”),但木炭或丙烷烤架都可以用来低烟慢烟。燃气烤架,因为没有煤来放木屑,所以配有烟盒,你可以把木屑放在里面,在丙烷的热量下闷烧,当盖子放在烤架上时,会产生烟雾。
You can evenimprovise a smoke boxout of an aluminum tray if your propane grill doesn’t come with one included. An advantage to propane grills is that the temperature is easy to adjust and maintain at a low temperature.
Charcoal grills, like wood fires, aren’t as easy to maintain at an exact temperature. They require more supervision. The key is to build the charcoal fire on one side of your barbeque, with the meat on the other side, so it isn’t directly over the fire. You also have to orient your grill with the wind and the vents so that the airflow draws the smoke across the meat before it leaves the vents.
把通风口放在烤肉盖的正上方,在迎风的一面生火,确保底部有通风口在火的下面。Remember, heat rises, so a barbeque is always drawing air from the bottom and expelling it at the top.
Smokers
A smoker – that is, a piece of equipment specifically designed for smoking – is the most ergonomic and precise way of smoking. These are electric-powered machines with a heating coil under a pan of wood chips that can be set to an exact temperature.
Smokers come in a wide range of sizes and prices. Asmall, home smokercan run less than $200 dollars, whilelarge smokersare in the thousands. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions and only use in well-ventilated or outdoor areas.
There is a specific type of smoker orsmoking apparatus for cold smoking在这种方法中,肉被放在一个冷藏的隔间里,烟雾通过管道从隔间外的一个燃烧源进入。
Cold smokers can be bought as complete machines just like electric hot smokers, but you can also build one yourself. Use an old refrigerator that still works, cut a hole in the side and pipe smoke in with six or eight-inch aluminum piping from whatever grill you have available. By putting the meat in the refrigerator, it will stay cold and raw during smoking.
Food Safety
保持厨具表面清洁,使用锋利的刀具。记住,任何产生烟雾的东西也会产生致命的二氧化碳。在室内熏肉可能会要了你的命。
When hot smoking, it is important to raise the internal temperature of the meat to 140 degrees Fahrenheit or higher for poultry. Use a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the cut. Serve within four hours of taking meat off the smoker.
When cold smoking, it is equally important that the temperature not rise above 40 degrees Fahrenheit for more than four hours. Of course, even the best-handled and well-prepared raw fish carries the risk of transmitting foodborne illness.
Smoking is a preservation method, especially when paired with salt. Smoked and salted meat will keep in the refrigerator for weeks, and in my personal experience, even months, but I don’t want to make too bold of a recommendation. And fully cured meat – that is salted, smoked, and dried – is shelf-stable for up to six months, although it may begin to taste rancid or stale.
With a little practice and trial and error, you will begin to master the ancient art of smoking meat. If you are having trouble getting started, invite a friend or two over and make an event out of it – in the meantime, you could whip up a batch of sausages to throw on the grill, using our guide tosausage making. Smoked meat is the perfect centerpiece of a summer barbecue, and it is an easy skill to learn to impress all your friends.
Gerry Morrissays
great read! what’s your personal favourite rub for pork and do you recommend a wood or charcoal smoker?